A Significant Story Teaching Us What Is Required to Fulfil Our Dreams
What the Wilderness story teaches us about the right attitude needed to reach our goals.
Everyone of us has that deeply innate longing to achieve something meaningful in our lives. For some people, it may be still hidden and waiting to be discovered; for some, it is already a clear and loud “YES” to do whatever they can to advance it.
According to positive psychology and its’ founding father, Abraham Maslow, self-actualization is the greatest need of every human being. It is a full realization of one’s creative, intellectual, and social potential through the internal drive. It is a longing to be and do something more than just to live an average life.
There is a reality beyond our current reality that we long for and where we want to direct ourselves to.
Some people achieve their dreams, some don’t. Why is that so?
I believe there is not one single answer to this. Reasons depend on each person, but one story clearly illustrates one of the biggest common roadblocks that we face in manifesting our dreams — complaining or the lack of gratitude.
I am talking about the story from the Bible that I often love to re-read to remind myself of the right attitude I must have to fulfill my dreams and reach my goals. It is a story about God’s nation’s — Israel — road through the wilderness (through the desert) to their Promised Land (the land where milk and honey flow).
Mental Slavery
The background story of God’s nation’s — Israel — road to their Promised Land was that for 400 years, they were slaves in Egypt. They experienced extreme harshness there as slaves.
According to the Theology of Work Bible commentary, “the Egyptian masters worked the Israelites ruthlessly and made their lives bitter with hard service. Work, one of the chief purposes and joys of human existence, was turned into misery by the harshness of oppression.”
It is clear that their lives were not pleasant, and freedom must have been everyone’s wildest dream and strongest desire.
Although nowadays, most people in western society don’t experience anything close to this type of slavery (except human trafficking victims), we still experience a significant level of mental slavery.
We may not be physically enslaved, but when we are submitted to our limitations, negative beliefs, state of victimhood, we are mentally slaves.
Let’s take the most common example for self-fulfillment in a career or business.
A mental slave may be someone who is stuck in a job they don’t like either because they don’t believe they can make money with something they love to do or don’t believe they have the skills and the drive to do something else.
The problem is often that people grow so used to the job and environment they don’t like that they become numb to their true feelings and desires.
Working a job you don’t like can become normalcy through the years if you don’t keep your dreams and desires alive.
What I mean eventually by mental slavery is that we have self-imposed limits that keep us slaved by our own choice.
“I don’t want to work the job I am working, but I need to pay the bills,” you might say. Of course, you can’t quit it exactly right now, but you still have a choice of what you do with your future. You can make a plan right now how you can quit your job in a year or two years because you have built a successful side hustle, for example.
But just like with Israelites in Egypt, who were so accustomed to their slavery state, that they did not consider other options, many people are accustomed to working the jobs they don’t like.
“Freedom and slavery are mental states.” Mahatma Gandhi
God’s Promise of Their Own Land
God saw the suffering of His people as they cried out for deliverance. Moses, an Israeli man, raised in the pharaoh’s palace, had an encounter with God. He received instructions to lead the Israeli nation out of Egypt and their own land. It was a land that God had Promised already to their ancestors.
However, Moses’ first reaction was not: “Yes, let’s do it!” He was doubting his abilities: “Who am I to do that? What if they don’t like me and don’t listen to me as a leader?” (Does that reaction sound familiar when you get introduced to an opportunity outside of your comfort zone?)
Eventually, Moses took up courage and went to the pharaoh to inquire about letting go of Israelites. Pharaoh, of course, did not listen. So God sent ten Egyptian plagues. The pharaoh finally gave up and freed the Israelites, so they left Egypt.
Geographically the Promised Land was ancient Canaan, which today encompasses Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, and the southern portions of Syria and Lebanon.
What is staggering is that their walking journey from Egypt to their Promised Land was only to take 11 days. But… it took them 40 years to reach their Promised Land!
Can you believe that?
Did they love to hang out in the desert so much that they decided to prolong their reach of the land where milk and honey flow?
Were they so indifferent about that Promised Land that they did not even want to reach it?
Absolutely no.
Wandering in the Desert
It took them 40 years instead of 11 days to reach their Promised Land because they were wandering around complaining, being ungrateful, and disbelieving that God is with them, helps them, and that Promised Land indeed is something way better than Egypt where they came from.
Your unknown future with your vision is way better than the familiar past you are attached so much to!
They lacked the belief that God really is on their side and leads them to a better place than they are coming from.
Many times during these 40 years, they were complaining, “Wish we would better stay in Egypt, at least we had food there.” They rebuked their leader Moses that he has misled them.
They quickly forgot and neglected the miracles God DID for them during their time in the desert.
When they lacked water, He made Moses knock on a rock, and the water started to flow from there. God protected them from the burning sun by sending a pillar of cloud during the day and gave them light during the night by sending a pillar of fire. He provided them with food — manna and meat.
At those moments, they recognized God’s help. They were appreciative, but they forgot these miracles quickly. Whenever a new challenge came up, they were throwing their hands up again in disbelief.
Because of the complaining attitude, lack of gratitude, faith, belief, they wandered around instead of taking the shortest road possible.
Needless to say that they did not have fancy maps nor GPS at that time. They did not know the road there. They did not know which paths to take through the desert mountains, and the compass was not invented yet at that time.
So to reach their Promised Land in the short time possible, they needed to entirely rely on God and His directions. They needed to be attentive.
However, because their hearts were turned away from the faith and soaked in complaining, they simply could not receive God’s leading. And most of all, God could not bring them in their Promised Land with this slave mentality still in their hearts. They would not be able to prosper in their Promised Land with this attitude of grumbling.
After God had taken them out of Egypt, He had to take Egypt out of them before He could put them in the Promised Land.
How This Relates to Our Pursuit of Goals, Dreams, Desires
Do you ever catch yourself grumbling and complaining about the things not going your way?
Do you ever doubt you can reach your goal, fulfill your dream or desires because you face obstacles?
Could you say with 100% confidence that you always have the attitude of belief and act accordingly?
Self-doubt is one of the biggest roadblocks of any high-achiever, entrepreneur, world-changer. The state of victimhood is one of the biggest things that hold people back from taking action to fulfill their dreams.
The fact is that victim consciousness does not disappear in one day. You actually need to put in the effort to rewire your brain and change how you are used to reacting and feeling.
Israelites in Egypt were so used to their state of victimhood that it took 40 years for them to get out of this state. They were simply unconsciously attached to it — unconsciously attached to the old habits of complaining, lacking belief, and looking at the “good, old, certain” past when faced with uncertainty.
That is why they could not reach nor enter their Promised Land, although it was there waiting for them all the time.
State of victimhood is characterized by complaining, lack of gratitude, lack of belief in a higher power, and that this higher power is on our side, helping us and is interested in us reaching our dreams, goals, and vision.
Definition of a victim — a person to whom life happens.
When we feel that the world is against us or that we always face obstacles, we will keep wandering in our wilderness for way longer than we actually want to.
When we lack gratitude, and we are in the fear, worry, and complaining mood, we are vibrating on a low emotional frequency. (Everything alive in this universe is a vibration — a thought, a sound, a movement, etc.)
When we are in a low emotional frequency (fear, worry, despair, undeserving, blame, pity, resentment, etc.), we attract in our lives what matches this emotional frequency.
What you see is what you get. What you feel is what you get.
When you are in a state of gratitude, it is one of the highest emotional frequencies, so you attract more things to be grateful for.
When you are in an elevated emotional state, your mind is also clearer. It does not feel as foggy as when you are overwhelmed with pity, regret, fear, etc. So then you are also able to connect with your intuition more. You can hear and sense the guidance of the higher power. You can hear the promptings of the Holy Spirit and learn to act on them, so you can make more right decisions.
One of my favorite verses from the Bible is this:
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” /Jer.29:11/
It helps us to realize that God is not against us but for us. When we deep inside know that God is for us, we will be less tempted to doubt, complain, grumble when we are on our road to Promised Land. Therefore, we will reach our destination quicker.
It is up to us how long our journey will be from where we are now to the great, inspiring dream in our hearts.
Final Thoughts
Although each of us longs for self-actualization — to fulfill our potential, reach incredible goals, have a tremendous and exciting lifestyle, make an impact, many of us caught up in our “wilderness” seasons for longer than we want or should.
The reason for that is:
we don’t believe we can reach our destination (our Promised Land — our dream, goal, vision);
we look at the past when we are in a time of transition because we lack the belief that a better future is ahead, so we feel like the past was better than now, simply because there was more clarity in the past than it is now;
we don’t think there is a higher power wanting to help and guide us, or we don’t think He wants to help us, so we are not able to connect to our intuition/spiritual part of ourselves for guidance;
we get caught up in low emotional vibration of complaining and grumbling, which only attracts more things in our lives to complain about;
we become so focused on obstacles that we simply don’t notice opportunities and ways how to make something work;
we lack gratitude for what is good, what is working, and what miracles we already have in our lives, so we cannot enter our Promised Land until we have learned the right attitude.
Have faith, self-belief, be grateful and believe that what is ahead is greater than what the familar past has been!
Want to get some ideas on how to create powerful, inspiring, and empowering affirmations? You can get many valuable examples in my FREE Guide “Powerful Affirmations List” — affirmations about success, confidence, financial abundance, relationships, and being joyful and productive. Find it here.
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Thank you for reading! 💛
Remember you are the creator of your own life! So be a conscious creator!
With love,
Laine
